- Antonio Rudiger decided to financially support the hospital where he was born in Berlin

- The 27-year-old will pay for catering cost for the next three months

- The Chelsea defender grew up in a refugee camp but he is now a successful footballer

Antonio Rudiger is making his own contributions to help in fight COVID-19 in his native home in Germany.

The Chelsea centre-back has paid for the catering expenses in the hospital where he was born in Berlin for the next three months.

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Rudiger spoke to the hospital management on how he could help them at a time when medical centres are struggling with coronavirus cases.

And the 27-year-old has responded swiftly by making his financial donations to help feed the hospital staff were he was born.

"I contacted the Berlin Charité before Easter and asked where I can help the most," said Rudiger. They told me that it’s very difficult to organise catering for the nursing staff during these days as the canteen is closed at the moment, as are all the restaurants around the hospital. I decided together with my family to overtake the catering costs for at least three months.

Rudiger further expressed his gratitude to the Berlin hospital for everything that was done to him in his youth.

"I’m very thankful for everything Berlin has given me during my youth. Now I have the possibility to give something back and hope the situation will get better very soon."

Rudiger revealed the major impact his upbringing as a refugee in Berlin had on him as a person and a footballer star.

The defender’s story is a rather sad one as he grew up in a place with lots of refugees of different ethnicities.

It was there that he learnt to appreciate different cultures since he had to interact with varying individuals through football.

"But sports, in general, bring people together. There, you speak one language, and from my point of view it was football that did that. We had a little football cage in the neighbourhood and that’s where I started playing. All the kids went out there and we had tournaments, it was competitive – you had a lot of skilful guys there and it was always interesting," he said as quoted by the Chelsea official website.

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